Last year we had a late start when QVC or HSN offered eight bare-root roses for $64, with free shipping. Nevertheless, we had a great start with new roses producing many different blooms that everyone enjoyed, with no aphids and only a little black spot. KnockOut roses were added, and they bloomed without ceasing, although the reds were stronger and better than the whites and pinks.
We used a simple method for healthy, productive roses:
- The holes were dug into the lawn and the roses planted without all the bother of soaking them 24 hours, or adding fertilizer to the hole (bad idea).
- Each plant was well watered in the hole and kept watered while getting established.
- Afterwards our helper and I covered the lawn with newspapers and then with wood mulch - Jackson Mulch.
- Uncle Jim's Earthworms (red wigglers) were added to the rose garden, where they quickly dug themselves in.
- Soaker hoses were placed to keep the roses watered.
- No fertilizer or pesticides were used.
- I pruned the roses throughout the summer, giving the roses away at school and in the neighborhood, placing them on the altar. Some went through our neighbor to the home of a dying patient in hospice care - and that meant so much to everyone in the family.
Long ago I reckoned that mulch was not really different from compost, much easier to build on the spot than to haul. I learned last year that new discoveries with soil fungi showed that the real action involved the microbes trapping, swapping, and moving nutrition to benefit themselves and the roots.
The roots say to the fungi, in effect, "You want my carbons? I need some nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus - and make it snappy."
Fungi need carbon to grow, so they obey the plant roots and supply what they need. Fungi also live in each plant to protect and help the plant.
People have fussed, dug, sprayed, and cussed - but the best remedy for roses and all plants is to lay down the organics and let the microbes do their work.
Gardeners should leave the soil undisturbed and untrampled. Mulched garden space feeds the microbes below and the insect eaters above. Birds and spiders love mulch. Cats like the rose garden because it is also a bird haven.
When the garden warmed up before the recent cold and snow, the first sign of spring was a spiders thread glimmering in the sunlight, trailing down from the top of a rose cane. Why would I spray him down with insecticide or rob him of food that will multiply his family members?
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